For my first personal style post in ages I chose an outfit I actually wore quite a while back: a crisp white shirt with a bright orange swingy skirt and cobalt blue sandals.
I wish I could still run around like that! Unfortunately, fall is not approaching; it has already come – to stay. So no more open-toed shoes, short-sleeved blouses and tights-less anything. Oh well, at least I don’t have to keep up with immaculate pedicures and perfectly shaved legs for the next couple of months.

Ok, so let’s talk some more about the Fall 2013 campaigns. I get that the businesses behind these brands are multi-billion dollar operations that have to sell their merchandise; and in order to achieve that with the greatest amount of success, they have to appeal to a very wide range (of very rich) people. No, actually, they have to appeal to everyone – since the less rich will still buy the perfumes, underwear, sunglasses etc. they can afford – which makes the task even more difficult. So yeah, I guess that they can’t really take any risks, that they can’t experiment with new, innovative marketing ideas. But some of the images presented in the campaigns are so old-fashioned, so predictable, dull and boring, I wouldn’t take a second look if it wasn’t for the famous and renowned name splashed under it. Well, and that’s probably it, in the end: Who needs to risk losing customers with some edgy, over-the-top imagery, if you can just slap your big name under some unimaginative pictures.
So, without further ado, here I present you part I of what I’d like to call the „The Good (yeah, some are still good, after all, see also here and here), The Bad and The Ugly“. Stay tuned for part II, coming tomorrow, and part III, on Thursday.

The Good:

CARVENI really love the idea behind this campaign. The images are hauntingly beautiful, irritating and disturbing. And despite the fact that the merchandise they are trying to sell here – clothes – are out of focus, you somehow still get a feeling for the texture and the (I guess) softness of the material. For my part, I just want to go and cozy up in one of the coats.Marine Deleeuw shot by Viviane Sassen

PROENZA SCHOULERI really like the mood going on in these pictures. For me, they have a Hitchcockian feeling about them. I particularly like the digital rendition of the birds in some of the pictures, they ad a somehow threatening edge to the images. The soft colors, airiness and the light are also quite eye-catching.Sasha Pivovarova shot by David Sims

STELLA McCARTNEYThen there’s Stella, who, like Kenzo, is taking a surrealistic approach to her Fall campaign. The edgy scenes were shot in London and show the models partially submerged in a swimming pool (how cool is that, to just drown a really expensive coat in chlorine?) and standing on a street, surrounded by arrows, exclamation points and some more arrows. The slight strangeness and unexpectedness of the pictures are very appealing and a breath of fresh air.Suvi Koponen and Chiharu Okunugi shot by Mert Alas and Marcus Piggott